smtplib: string formatting not carrying over to email

[ClassicalSoul]

The string formatting I specify in python doesn't carry over perfectly to email when I send it via smtplib.

def main():
    pull()   # pulls html grades from university website
    graded_courses = scrape()  # scrapes html 
    row_fmt = '{0:10}{1:4}{2:6}{3}\n'
    body = ""
    for course in graded_courses:
        body += row_fmt.format(course.name, 'f'+course.percentage_grade, course.letter_grade, 'g'+course.avg) #grades are not released yet, so 'f' and 'g' are just for demo purposes (course.percentage_grade, course.avg are empty strings)
    print(body)
    send_email(body)

Output:
CSC148H1  f   IPR   g
CSC165H1  f   IPR   g
MAT137Y1  f   IPR   g
MAT224H1  f   IPR   g
SMC212H1  f   IPR   g

Email sent 

However my gmail display shows this:
   

Which as you can see is a bit off in its formatting

[bowlofred]

Generally for a terminal, you make things line up with spaces, and assume a monospaced font in use.

For email, I would assume HTML parsing and proportionally spaced fonts. You could try wrapping your output in <pre></pre> tags and see if the email renders it in a monospace font. Or, create a real HTML table and spit out the tags for that (and there are several modules that would assist with printing HTML tables)